Bacon is customarily eaten in small quantities as a side dish to breakfast or lunch. This is largely because the meat, although tasty, has a high fat content making it very rich. When an individual wishes to cook a quick breakfast or lunch in a microwave oven, he or she may desire to cook bacon as part of the meal. Prior efforts however to package bacon such that one slice at a time may be removed and cooked in a microwave oven have been less than successful.
Bacon is customarily packaged for sale to the consumer in the form of overlapping slices packaged in cardboard containers having a weight of approximately one pound. Generally such packages are not adapted to be placed within a microwave oven. A typical bacon package is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,054,681. Containers which are suitable for packaging bacon and are adapted to be used within a microwave oven generally contain several slices of bacon packaged on top of an absorbing material, such as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,141,487 and 4,720,410. A package in which the slices of bacon are laid parallel to one another without overlapping is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,141,487, and a package in which the bacon has been arranged such that the slices overlap one another such is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,720,410.
Problems exist with either of the foregoing methods of packaging when the bacon is intended to be cooked in a microwave oven. Bacon packages which provide for a limited number of slices in side by side arrangements have been expensive to produce with the result that the cost of the product has deterred the saleability of the product. On the other hand, when bacon is arranged in overlapping relationship, the individual slices cannot be readily separated, especially when the product has been stored in a frozen condition. Even when not frozen the slices of bacon have a tendency to stick to one another, and as a result a user who wishes to cook only one or two slices of bacon has certain difficulties in removing the slices.
It is therefore desirable to provide a method of packaging bacon in containers holding numerous slices of bacon and weighing approximately one pound, and yet have the container suitable for storing in a freezer. Furthermore, it would be desirable to have a method of packaging bacon which would allow the removal of individual slices of frozen bacon which are suitably prepared for cooking in a microwave oven.